Neil Diamond is Forever... And With Good Reason

BOOK REVIEW

There’s a very spirited argument running through my head as to whether Neil Diamond is Forever should be published as a book critique or a music review. This beautiful hardbound monster of a book came in the customary brown mailing envelope and the moment it emerged from hiding, music began flowing through my head. Music more clear than any CD could possibly produce and more vivid than any photograph or painting. From the moment you open this volume until hours after its last page is viewed, Neil Diamond’s music will flow flawlessly through your mind.

You are the sun, I am the moon, here are the words, you know the tune… read this.

Masterful fingers will continuously strum a blessed guitar and strings swell higher than an eagle dares to fly… and I hadn’t even opened the damned book yet. Neil Diamond has an incredible talent for placing images in your mind intertwined with music and though sometimes after a period of years you may forget a lyric or two, the music lives on.

As each page turns you find a new image of a career that has spanned decades; and deservedly so. It’s a book that has to be read twice because you don’t want words to distract from the beautifully reproduced images and the music that can’t leave your mind. “I’ll read it after I check out more of the pictures,” you’ll tell yourself.


Fat chance


The next page always seems to have an image that brings up a long-lost memory that compels you to read its description. You find yourself carried away remembering your old 45 collection; deciding not to explain to your kids what a “45” is for fear of making yourself seem or feel too old just yet. Surprise’ll catch you by the image of a Monkees single, then you read where young Neil was approached by Don Kirshner to submit some music for his new TV show. The pre-fab four’s rendition of “I’m a Believer” originally began as a throwaway tune that was a little bit too “bubblegum” for Neil until he became rich over night from it, setting up his financial freedom to record more masterful works.

And the story of a young delivery boy who made it good in the big city, and then the country, and then the world goes on from there, but it’s the pictures that make this book a worthy addition to any Neil Diamond fan’s collection.

This incredible artist began his career in a long-lost era when music was mostly delivered over 3-inch transistor radios in mono laying face down on a beach somewhere. The only alternative was a single 5-inch car dashboard speaker bouncing off of a flat windshield. To impress someone under that format was a feat in itself. It was a time when AM radio stations played the Mamas and the Papas, the Smothers Brothers, Steppenwolf and Barbra Streisand one right after the other and never batted an eye. There were no synthesized instruments or stolen bits and pieces of other musical artists’ work to hide behind. You usually only had no more than three or four minutes to sell your song because radio stations didn’t want listeners wandering off if they didn’t like what was playing at the moment… so that’s all you had-a moment. If you weren’t good your were relegated to that much-avoided category of “one hit wonder.”

Jon Bream has done a great job of building this 8.5 x 11 inch hardbound collection and it is a testament to just how well the author knows his subject. Within its 160 pages you’ll find 225 huge color and 81 black & white photos leaving you with the impression that there can’t possibly be a single photo of Neil that isn’t contained in this volume. The story of Neil’s life and career is inspiring and noteworthy because of its many triumphs and it’s longevity.

The only regret I have of writing this review is having to reduce the size of the incredibly clear and large photos so that they’ll fit on a little computer screen. If you click on any of the images above they enlarge for a better view! The only question still looming after reading the book concerns wondering why Neil hasn’t been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame yet. The next time you go to a fireworks display and sing along with Neil coming to America you can ask yourself the same question.

I highly recommend this book and it holds an honored place on my shelf.

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©-2009 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

Eric Woolfson Sings The Alan Parsons Project That Never Was

CD REVIEW

My favorite tracks from the collected Alan Parsons Project CDs are nearly all sung by Eric Woolfson. However if you’re expecting a lost Parsons Project CD (as the title implies,) you’ll be sorely disappointed here.

I’d expected to find at least an alternate version of “Time,” an acoustic version of “Don’t Answer Me,” or like Alan did on his CD A Valid Path; an electronic version of “The Raven.” What I got instead in my opinion, were under/over produced original album discards and show tunes that gave me nothing that even vaguely resembled The Project, except for that long craved-for voice.

In addition The Alan Parson Project CDs at least had an underlying concept, which is completely lacking here unless you consider songs recorded over the years but rejected for cause as a valid theme. APP CDs also had that infamous wall of sound that carries you thorough from the beginning to the end of each song that’s sorely lacking here. On some tracks of this CD you can actually feel the empty space between the words

Any casual fan (despite a sort of doubting bitter denial in the liner notes) knows of Eric Woolfson’s essential contribution, voice and name to the APP since it’s inception with Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

From the liner notes:

Interviewer: “As you are the creator and writer of The Alan Parsons Project, and sometimes lead singer, why is it not called ‘The Eric Woolfson Project’? Or perhaps the ‘Parsons/Woolfson Project’?"

Woolfson: “I describe the decision to call it ‘The Alan Parsons Project’ as both the best and the worst decision of my career. The best, because I have enjoyed the benefits of the APP success without having to deal with public recognition and media attention. The worst because outside my family and friends, few people have any idea of who I am or what I do, which is a price, I have always felt, was worth paying.”

The above makes Woolfson come off as a bitter ex-wife, and this CD is a perfect explanation as to why they were called the Alan Parsons Project. Any fan would resent the fact that the above implies that Alan had nothing to do with the creation of the band by the use of "the creator" instead of "one of the creators." If he’d simply titled this CD Eric Woolfson… My Latest Solo Effort instead, I wouldn't have anticipated another version of the Parsons Project and maybe it would be more readily acceptable… or at least palatable. But getting my hopes up for the "Alan Parsons Project that never was" in my opinion is at best false advertising.

At least when Alan continued on, after Eric left in 1990 to write stage musicals, Parsons re-branded the band simply Alan Parsons. You knew his new efforts would be similar, but you weren’t expecting the same essence you’d previously become comfortable with.
As you listen to this compilation, one thing will quickly become crystal clear; The Alan Parsons Project without either Parsons or Woolfson is like being asked to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without one of the two essential ingredients between the bread. While you’d be willing to eat either without the other, and both are digestible, it’s just not as good if you’ve tasted both together previously. To be fair, I thought the exact same thing about Alan Parson’s CD A Valid Path. The majority of that CD is great until he tried to re-imagine such classics as the aforementioned “The Raven” by subtracting Woolfson’s contribution to it.

Woolfson has presented here instead (as the liner notes make clear) a studio version of a high school produced stage play entitled, “Applaud me, for I am the unsung hero!” Instead of envisioning the music in your head as you listen to it, in its place you see Woolfson standing alone on an empty barren stage with no one in the audience. No more so than on the track “Someone In The Audience” where the request is made to ring the curtain down on him in the middle of his performance.

So let’s get down to the particulars:

The first thing that hits you within seconds is that Eric’s voice isn’t being “doubled” as it was on the APP CDs, which means every wavering, strained or struggled note that he sings stands out like a sore thumb. Doubling is the studio effect of the singer singing with himself smoothing out the rough edges. Because of the lack of this one single effect that warm comforting and beautiful voice of his that you loved and instantly recognize comes off as just old and tired.

For example, on “The Golden Key” I actually winced in pain when his voice cracked twice delivering the line “…no one promised me an island in the sun”. Some songs are delivered in a pace that is so slow; you can almost imagine the track being dragged across the floor with a 200-pound concrete block chained to it. On several tracks he tries to sing either far above or far below his vocal range. “Along The Road” is delivered with the strain of a first tenor trying to sing the part of a second bass. The effect is so distracting that it’s impossible to distinguish that it's actually Woolfson singing it, making it difficult to enjoy or comprehend the song.

In fact it’s nearly impossible to enjoy or comprehend this entire body of work. If you’re planning to purchase this CD because you’re a fan of Woolfson’s post APP work and/or his stage musicals, you’ll probably be delighted.

All music and lyrics here are by Eric Woolfson. He produced this compilation too and it shows because without the balancing influence of Alan Parsons to refine it and apparently his ego, it in my humble opinion falls flat on its face.

My general response to this volume of work would be to re-title it, The Alan Parsons Project That Never Was… and for truly good reason!

A classic and long-gone cartoon series called BLOOM COUNTY had a penguin named Opus who did movie reviews for the local paper. I’d like to think he would’ve used his famous tag line on this CD: “…Well, maybe it wasn’t THAT bad, but Lord it wasn’t good!”

WARNING: Reproduction of the FIRST PARAGRAPH of this article is permitted as long as a link back to it is provided.
Reproduction of any part this article past the first paragraph is forbidden without the author's permission
©-2009 by Jet Gardner/Blogcritics.org

When Did My Musical Tastes Become Obsolete?

I saw an episode of The Cosby Show where Stevie Wonder’s limo hits Denise’s car. Clair declared that her kids would never forget meeting him for the rest of their lives. It occurred to me that, while that was true, they might have to explain who Wonder was in about 10 years.

It’s a generational thing. My parents loved Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, and Jimmy Dean, probably to upset their parents who were into Les Brown and His Band Renown, Dean Martin and the Andrews Sisters. Therefore I had to love Three Dog Night, The Beach Boys, and then Aerosmith, Led Zepplin, Genesis, and Pink Floyd just to spite them. Not to be outdone the next generation went berserk for Donna S’s, and KC and The Sunshine Band’s disco gang because they knew my generation hated it, and their kids are now appalling their parents by being in love with rap and hip hop.

I still have to tell people that Richard Harris did not steal "MacArthur Park" from Donna Disco Queen. About 10 years ago I remember explaining to a kid that Paul McCartney was more famous as a Beatle than as member of Wings, and had to explain that Paul didn’t rip off “Live and Let Die” from Axl Rose, and he wouldn’t believe me till I showed him a video tape of the movie.

It’s not fair that I should know what a “33 1/3” is, or be embarrassed for knowing all the words to the Mamas and the Papas “California Dreamin’,” or have Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon memorized. You know you’re musically obsolete when you find yourself singing along with The Moody Blue's “Nights in White Satin” playing on the overhead speakers at the grocery store... and then I realized I knew all the words to all the songs I was hearing.

It didn’t dawn on me until a friend my age said he doesn’t listen to country music anymore on the radio because it’s changed so much. That threw me - it still sounds the same to me: some guy falls in love, his wife leaves him for another man, he’s all alone with his huntin’ dawgs, and his pickup breaks down.

I used to be so proud cruising around with my top down and the stereo up, blasting “The luuuuuunatics are on the grahhhs…” Now I get looks like I’ve lost my mind for playing such garbage in public.

Someday soon in a Wal-Mart checkout line, I hope to hear some mother explain to her kid that she used to love to listen to "The New Kids on the Block," only to have the kid ask, "Really; where did they live?"

The only thing that gives me comfort is that sometime around 2025 today’s kids will be totally embarrassed as adults to play what’s current now for their kids, and get just as self-conscious as I do when I’m stopped at an intersection singing out loud “Day-lie day-lie my boyfriend’s back!”

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© 2006 by Jet in Columbus